L’intégration des Sept Merveilles du Monde à la culture chrétienne. Entre survivance et réinterprétation

The purpose of the present paper is to show how the antique tradition of the Seven Wonders of the world has been integrated into Christian culture in two rather separate and distinct forms, whether that of a simple enumeration of the wonders such as one finds in encyclopedic textes, or as a reelaborated list based on the seven ancient wonders but now augmented by some new wonders intentded to show God’s power. The first part of the paper will survey the origins of the tradtion of the Seven Wonders of the World and to treat the main authors who passed on the tradition to the medieval world. The second part will be devoted to those late medieval treatises which base themselves on the antique tradition or which take the form of an elaborated list which does or does not form the basis of a religious commentary. We conclude finally by the presentation of some medieval representtions of Alexander the Great’s Lighthouse and the Colossus of Rhodes.